Reported by Mat Gallagher:
The World Press Photo commissioned Dr David Campbell to examine the current practices of multimedia against the background of the disruption in the traditional media economy, and the revolution in how people consume news today. The report, which was delivered to World Press Photo in Amsterdam yesterday, poses five questions: How is multimedia being produced? How is it being financed? How is it being published/distributed, and who is doing it? How are viewers consuming multimedia? And what types of multimedia attract the most attention and what are the criteria for success?
What is clear from the piece is that the term multimedia cannot be fully defined and that, in this period of post-industrial journalism, visual story telling takes many forms. Despite the rather depressing steady decline in news print sales globally since the 1950s there is still a healthy appetite for news, which is increasingly being filled by online and digital sources. Online news video is the largest growing multimedia format and some media houses, such as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, are now expanding their video operations. The issue of funding and the fall in advertising revenue is covered in detail and though it seems journalism has always been subsidised by advertising, this model is not sustainable in the digital world. The piece finishes with advice for photojournalists as to how to stay relevant and profitable.
Though not directly associated with World Press Photo’s awards, hopefully this vision of multimedia, or visual story telling will filter down to its future judging panels and organisation to allow documentary and news video to compete fairly in future competitions.
You can read David’s full report here on the World Press Photo web site
NAB 2013: The Future of Newspaper Video from Teradek on Vimeo.
In somewhat related news, in our final discussion panel (originally streamed live from the Teradek booth at NAB2013) Dan Chung talked to Dirck Halstead publisher of The Digital Journalist, Chuck Fadeley from the Miami Herald and Jonah Kessel from the New York Times about the state, and the future, of Newspaper video.
